The Gunpowder Plot, attempting murder and treason, severely damages the Catholic cause in Britain

The Protestant Frederick V (elector palatine of the Rhine) is elected king by the rebellious Bohemian nobles

John Hampden refuses to pay ship money to Charles I, beginning a campaign that gradually wins wide support

A National Covenant, first signed in an Edinburgh churchyard, commits the Covenanters to oppose Charles I's reforms of the Church of Scotland

Riots erupt in Edinburgh, in response to the attempt by Charles I and Laud to impose a hierarchy of Anglican bishops

Covenanters seize control of Edinburgh and other Scottish towns, launching the conflict with England known as the Bishops' War

A Cossack rebellion leads to the eventual transfer of their territory from Poland to Russia

A rebellion of nobles against Mazarin, the principal minister of the young Louis XIV, becomes known as the Fronde

The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico rise against the Spanish, killing 21 missionaries and some 400 colonists

Machines are thrown out of the window of a Spitalfields factory, in an early protest against industrialization

A Jacobite uprising in Scotland on behalf of the Old Pretender ends in fiasco

Charles Edward Stuart lands at Eriskay in the Hebrides, launching the Forty-Five Rebellion

Charles Edward Stuart gathers support for the Forty-Five Rebellion on his way south from the Hebrides and reaches Edinburgh

Charles Edward Stuart marches as far south as Derby, but then turns back

Charles Edward Stuart and his 5000 Scots are routed at Culloden, bringing the Forty-Five Rebellion to an abrupt end

Benjamin Franklin's chopped-up snake, urging union of the colonies with the caption 'Join or Die', is the first American political cartoon

Benjamin Franklin proposes to the Albany Congress that the colonies should unite to form a colonial government

Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, leads an uprising of the Indian tribes in an attempt to drive the British east of the Appalachians

Britain passes the Sugar Act, levying duty on sugar, wine and textiles imported into America

Britain passes the Stamp Act, taxing legal documents and newspapers in the American colonies

American campaigners against the Stamp Act organize themselves as the Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts and New York

Britain repeals the Stamp Act, in a major reversal of policy achieved by resistance in the American colonies

The British Chancellor, Charles Townshend, passes a series of acts taxing all glass, lead, paint, paper and tea imported into the American colonies

British troops fire into an unruly crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five

In response to American protests, the British government removes the Townshend duties on all commodities with the exception of tea